J.D. Vance Committed The Unforgivable Facecrime Of Smiling

When I read Maureen Dowd’s column about vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance’s debate night smirk, I was reminded of my canceled academic career and reading literary journals that went in-depth into such things as “phallogocentrism” and the “male gaze.” Over the past decade, such fears have migrated from campuses to the everyday world.

Dowd was complaining about the fact that presidential candidate Kamala Harris is being portrayed in Trump campaign ads as incapable of protecting Americans from foreign threats — a continuation of the sexism faced by the “bubbly” Geraldine Ferraro and by the “hawk”-ish Hillary Clinton (and perhaps Michael Dukakis). It would have nothing to do with such statements like “We’re not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.” As I learned in graduate school, logic is phallic.

Dowd also complained that when Trump returned to Butler, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 5, he was “martyr-milking” the assassination attempt, the one moment where he had shown courage. Otherwise, he lives in a “miasma of self-pity.” In “Trumpworld,” “sympathy is weakness.”

Same for Vance, who like a “chameleon” had “ambitiously code-switched into a Trumper.” He represents the “future of the [Republican] party”: “lies piled on lies, and darkness swallowing darkness.”

During the debate, did Vance in Trump/Hitler fashion snarl and shout, pound his fists, with flames of fire shooting from his bloodshot eyes? No, there was something more “chilling,” according to Dowd. Vance put on a “mask of likability and empathy.”

It was not real empathy, but masculine aggression and toxicity. (Think Ted Bundy with his good looks and charm.) The giveaway? He smirked. Smirking by male Republicans is an irrefutable sign of male toxicity.

Consider 16-year-old MAGA hat-wearing Nick Sandmann, who in January 2019 dared to “smirk” when a Native American “elder” banged a drum in his face during the March for Life. His younger schoolmates from the Covington Catholic boys school, as boys are wont to do, jumped around like monkeys. Sandman remained composed.

“Nick Sandmann — caught on camera smirking at Native man — says he wasn’t smirking” read a typical headline. The teenager had to explain to then 48-year-old Savannah Guthrie that he was smiling after the Hebrew Israelites taunted the students, and the elder (Nathan Phillips) beat his drum, according to Phillips in order to “defuse” the situation. Sandmann’s explanation, however, that he smiled slightly in order to not escalate the situation seems more plausible. He also said that he had “every right” to stand there, in a public place.

But for Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart “’the smirk’” was the “indelible image” of “the latest edition of America’s thick book of Rorschach tests on race and difference.” Sandmann’s facial expression was the “inverse of the [Brett] Kavanaugh scowl” during Christine Blasey Ford’s “testimony.” Capehart’s “negative response” to Sandmann’s “countenance” was “buttressed” by the responses Sandmann gave Guthrie, such as his right to stand where he had been standing and that if “’Mr. Phillips’” wanted to walk past him he was not stopping him.

Even though Sandmann had been adhering to the now outdated adage of children being seen and not heard, Capehart fumed, “That he talks about an adult as if they are on equal footing compounds the gall.” The “privilege embedded in Sandmann’s responses is the audible manifestation of what the smirk represented to so many” — to those who are not white, straight, and male — “a world of hurt.”

Sandmann sued CNN and The Washington Post for defamation and reportedly settled for hundreds of millions of dollars.

It was not only Sandmann who was accused of face crimes. Newly installed Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s “poker face” during President Biden’s last State of the Union address was determined to be one of the “worst” by New York Times analyst Rebecca Davis O’Brien. “His eyebrows arched and fell. He pursed his lips,” she charged. “He couldn’t decide whether he should stand up, smile or frown.”

And then, “He smirked.” And “sort of rolled his eyes,” “looked down,” “sighed,” “shook his head,” “swallowed,” and “looked amused and patient.”

Johnson was guilty of facial expressions, which “presidential historian” Douglas Brinkley speculated he might have practiced in front of the mirror. In contrast, “Vice President Kamala Harris managed to appear both relaxed and disciplined, her face always on message.” Johnson’s reaction may have been inspired by Biden’s not allowing him to give the ceremonial introduction and then repeatedly attacking his “predecessor,” i.e., Trump.

But back in 2020, at President Trump’s State of the Union, Nancy Pelosi, dressed in the white of her suffragette comrades, provided considerable distraction as she sat behind POTUS doing facial calisthenics — lip-moistening, mouth-smacking, tongue-rolling, denture-fixing, lip-pursing, side glances — and paper-flipping while looking down in a pantomime of reading, as if to verify the terms of a dubious contract Trump was reading aloud. This performance was described positively as “alternating a sarcastic clap with an unflinching scowl.” In a triumphant finale, “she calmly stood up and tore his printed remarks in half, like a dissatisfied customer rejecting a bill.”

Pelosi understudy Kamala Harris did the same routine but “cute” during her debate with Trump as he was speaking. At one point she put one arm on top of the other to hold her chin in hand, lips drawn in, as if little Donny were trying to fool her about stealing the cookies.

As Miranda Devine revealed, there was purpose behind this feminine debate technique: the “nasty” faces were designed for viral “Brat Girl” moments on social media. The New York Times saw such “Brat Girl” moments as an effective “weapon” that enhanced her message.

No “Brat Girl” moments for Donald Trump, though! “There was no mischievous smirk, practiced scowl, shimmying to the Village People, or any of the other hallmarks of a typical Trump performance” at the Republican convention, noted Sean McCreesh, with no little satisfaction. It was only days after the bullet had grazed Trump’s ear and he still wore a white bandage. Trump was more subdued. But if it took a bullet to do that, McCreesh seemed okay with it.

Today, being careful about microaggressions and hurtful words seems to be inadequate. Nor is it enough to stop “misinformation.”

When someone like Vance acts in a gentlemanly manner, the stakes have to be raised.

“How dare you even breathe in the air that we breathe on this planet!” we can hear Dowd screeching at the charming Vance on TV.

So she had to give Tim Walz some credit. After “nearly 90 minutes of being lulled by Vance’s sham persona,” Walz “ripped” off the mask by confronting him about the claims about the irregularities in the 2020 election — now known as election “denialism.” Walz did it with a bug-eyed look of bewilderment and fear.

This is the only kind of facial expression acceptable to Ms. Dowd and her sisters, who, wagging index fingers at hapless boys, screech, “wipe that smirk off your face!”